Sid's Place

Choo-Choo · Post by **Choo-Choo** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:50 am

Ok i know i didnt include the xml traincars and trains file that is because i had it set to read the global xml's so incase people had theres modified it would use them. When i played it in single player 1 AI i had no problems. When i played it in multi it ctd 2x no clue why. It seems every map i work on i use other stuff people have used in thier maps they claim work but some reason dont work for me.

My apologies for the problems its not that i dont know what im doing, its just a have bad luck LOL.

P.S Plz let me know what u think bout how it plays out tho not sure if scenario is to tough or not.

atani · Post by **atani** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:14 am

Installer for this map. I have tested it with 3AI and saw no problems..

snoopy55 · Post by **snoopy55** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:32 am

choo-choo - it might be that you are missing a few things. There is a sticky at the top of the Maps list that gives the needed things for full GLOBAL files. check it out.

K-class · Post by **K-class** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:33 am

Hey Choo-Choo

Dont apologies you are making maps and we are all learning here, I for one are now confident in fiddling in xml and can alter the maps and scenarios to suite me which is great.

If I had some spare time I would take the plunge and start a new map as well and I would be like everyone else a few mistakes here and there and this is how we learn and get better at our graft. Be thankful we are not a brain surgeon image a CTD then!.

dwax · Post by **dwax** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:51 am

I'm glad we have people here that are willing to share there maps!

it's what is keeping this game alive. and I enjoy your maps Choo-Choo.

I did have problems on mine about Nov 1945 it kept CTD. I thought it was because I altered the XML's. I would keep loading at the time it was crashing to see what I was doing wrong... It seemed to be in the trains, it would show no trains in the round house, see picture, then crash. I froze the year and let it play by it self for 10 or 15 min then unfroze the year and it so far has not crashed again.

I thought it might be somthing in the wine...when it tried to load wine it CTD. Is there suppose to be a wine car in the TrainCarsXML??

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 12:43 pm

Installed with atani's installer and CTD's on loading. Cleaned up the scenerio.xml by removing all xml references to global xml's and added a traincar and train xml. Map now loads and runs till I try to load nitrates and the it CTD's. It would be helpful to know which maps must be installed for this one to work. I have most maps installed but probably not all, which is more than likely why the map runs for some people and not for others.

Post by **Warll** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:26 pm

Try this: http://hookedforums.com/a/viewtopic.php?t=1519

Lowell · Post by **Lowell** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 3:57 pm

Thanks Snoopy55...

I removed the tender car entries on all the maps (I have all the maps on the forum) and everything ran just fine. I have a ton of dual engines with different skins so my roundhouse must have 50 or more engines in it by now. I must have picked up that bad habit of placing the tenders in both the global and scenario train cars file when I first started digging and building. Several maps I have downloaded have also had the steam tenders listed inside the scenarioâ€™s tender cars file...those would hard crash if I hadnâ€™t placed my tender cars list inside their tender cars file. So I have allowed the goods cars list to remain and totally removed any tender cars listings all maps. "That clears up some confusion I was having as to why they should be listed inside the scenario tender cars list."

I am a LightWave user, I also have Vue 'd Esprit, Bryce, Poser ... etc. So I am studying up on converting my 3D train engine models into the files needed, as well as skinning.

Thanks again for the correction on the file placement.

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:22 pm

Can anyone explain why we need to remove the Tender Cars from the map's TrainCars XML file? I am trying to understand if this is another exception to the rules of the global XML file system.

I have always included the TenderCars section in my maps and have never seen a problem doing this. I think you just have to make sure you include ALL the tender cars used in your map and not just the default 4 steam tenders that are usually added. This same rule applies to TrainCars, Goods, Industries, etc. If you include one, you have to include all used by your map. This is how all the XML files work, so why are we treating Tender Cars differently?

For BasinAndRangeDemo, I added the Super Chief B-Unit and the GP38Dummy as TenderCars since these are the only 2 used in the map (no steam tenders needed by the map). Did anyone see a crash with this, because I didn't.

Of course it would be easier to remove the TenderCars from the map's TrainCars file and have it load all the tenders from the global TrainCars.xml, but then I think the game is loading a lot of unused tender model and texture files and just using up valuable RAM.

atani · Post by **atani** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 4:28 pm

choobacca wrote:Can anyone explain why we need to remove the Tender Cars from the map's TrainCars XML file? I am trying to understand if this is another exception to the rules of the global XML file system.

The primary reason for this is that it will overwrite what the GLOBAL xml files state for tender cars, regardless of which trains you pick for your map.

choobacca wrote: I have always included the TenderCars section in my maps and have never seen a problem doing this. I think you just have to make sure you include ALL the tender cars used in your map and not just the default 4 steam tenders that are usually added. This same rule applies to TrainCars, Goods, Industries, etc. If you include one, you have to include all used by your map. This is how all the XML files work, so why are we treating Tender Cars differently?

Including TenderCar entries for tenders which are non-standard is dangerous and will lead to CTD for users who do not have the specific mods installed for the TenderCars which you list.

choobacca wrote: For BasinAndRangeDemo, I added the Super Chief B-Unit and the GP38Dummy as TenderCars since these are the only 2 used in the map (no steam tenders needed by the map). Did anyone see a crash with this, because I didn't.

No, the BasinAndRangeDemo map installed the proper resources for these TenderCars, this is fine. If you install *ALL* resources for the given TenderCars (including Mange's tenders if you list them)

choobacca wrote: Of course it would be easier to remove the TenderCars from the map's TrainCars file and have it load all the tenders from the global TrainCars.xml, but then I think the game is loading a lot of unused tender model and texture files and just using up valuable RAM.

I believe it only loads them once you load a train which uses them. Otherwise it will always load the tender car lines from the GLOBAL XML files regardless of what you have in your RRT_Trains_XXX.xml (unless you fully specify the train details)

Mike

choobacca · Post by **choobacca** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 5:07 pm

Thanks Mike.
I will follow the suggestions of you, Snoopy, and K-class and just add the necessary XML to the global TrainCars.xml and leave tenders out of my map's TenderCars xml file to be safe.

dwax · Post by **dwax** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:42 pm

This game gets stranger every time.

Here I was playing the map and up pop's a screen saying I get a new engine. The GP38 Dual's.

Say what??? I never even had it set up to use them!

Have every city hooked up...sure then give me the GP38's

CeeBee51 · Post by **CeeBee51** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:53 am

You know, sometimes I just want to play and not have to mess with xml's, this file that file and all the crap and time I waste figuring it out. I get home from work, I'm tired and I just want to relax and have fun. Guess this just isn't the right game

I've been playing CIV4 and the Warlords expansion pack since almost the day it came out. After the 1.61 patch it's pretty much been problem free and thats with running pretty much any mod thats suited my fancy. If mods can be made user friendly for CIV why cant things work properly for SMR? I think it's the way the game has been designed and the way I see it, it would probably be better if a custom map included the whole ball of wax, everything needed to run that map, and nothing about that map would impact on any other map. I'd rather have a few megs of extra files than spending countless hours trying to get something working thats working for everybody else but me.

G3mInI · Post by **G3mInI** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 3:52 pm

Couldn't agree with you more CeeBee. I have quit messing with Railroads because I do not like the direction this modding community has taken. It has become so user unfriendly its pathetic, in my opinion. I tried to lay out a means that would be happy for all, by separating the mods from the maps, but to no avail.

I love the game but no longer play any custom maps, because I will not jack up my copy of Railroads to satisfy these custom maps.

I am hoping Sid releases a patch sometime to fix the xml files and make them visible to the custom assets so modders can have an easier time, and all of this editing to get a map working goes away. Until then, I just occasionally play a stock map here and there or a custom map that was made before all these mods came out. Mods are great, but the way they are implemented just plain sucks.

Until this community separates the mods from the maps, it will continue to dwindle until only those making the mods are playing the maps, and what fun is that?

My opinion can be taken any way you like it, but the fact remains, to get a custom map working with the current system is failing. More people will be discouraged, than be happy. And that cannot be denied.

Separate the mods from the maps, and I guarantee you Railroads will last.
Leave it like this and Railroads will sink with all of its mods buried deep inside the maps.

G3mInI

atani · Post by **atani** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 4:00 pm

G3mInI wrote:I am hoping Sid releases a patch sometime to fix the xml files and make them visible to the custom assets so modders can have an easier time, and all of this editing to get a map working goes away. Until then, I just occasionally play a stock map here and there or a custom map that was made before all these mods came out. Mods are great, but the way they are implemented just plain sucks.

I do have to agree that the current packaging is not 100% ideal with the installers. A majority of the problem comes from people creating maps which use custom content and they do not know exactly which files they require for proper operations...

If we did split the content of custom maps into "maps" and "goods" then things would be a bit better in some ways. Also NSIS does allow to chain installers.

Mike